Motor-Augmented Wrist-Driven Orthosis: Flexible Grasp Assistance for People with Spinal Cord Injury

This paper presents the design of a motor-augmented wrist-driven orthosis (MWDO) for improved grasp articulation for people with C6-C7 spinal cord injuries. Based on the traditional passive, wrist-driven orthotic (WDO) mechanism, the MWDO allows for both body-powered and motorized actuation of the grasping output thus enabling more flexible and dexterous operation. Here, the associated control scheme enables active decoupling of wrist and finger articulation, which can be useful during certain phases of manipulation tasks. An additional modification to the traditional WDO is the integration of a magnetic latch at the Distal Interphalangeal (DIP) joint allowing for improved pinching. These abilities are demonstrated with common activities of daily living (ADL).